


Your Piece of Heaven, in this House of Hell (Cophine)

by Lucifiafer



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Beauty and the Beast Elements, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-11-02 07:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10940112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucifiafer/pseuds/Lucifiafer
Summary: Cosima finds herself taken captive in a very odd house containing some very odd people.





	1. Welcome

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration was loosely taken from Beauty and the Beast, but I was also reading "The Bloody Chamber" by Angela Carter when I started this.
> 
> Warning now: this will get a tad graphic/disturbing in later chapters.

A cholera outbreak in a Canadian town in 1981 should have at least been a news story. It wasn't. 

Despite its 57% fatality rate, nobody cared. It began as a reduction in tap water pressure, and ended with a mass grave containing 240 bodies in the middle of what used to be a playground. The living minority then scattered, fleeing the filthy, poisoned water for anywhere safer. 

An anonymous, and presumably very wealthy, land developer bought all of the houses in the town, as well as the public spaces and small businesses. Nobody had the time to consider why anybody would want this much land in an area that the world had seemingly forgotten, but then again, nobody cared. People outside didn't notice the town, the living were glad to go somewhere they could brush their teeth without getting sick, and the dead were dead.

All of the houses were abandoned in the space of three weeks and had fallen into disrepair within a year. The only development in the whole town in over 30 years was an 8 foot tall brick wall with an iron gate that could be closed and locked (but never was, as it was creepy enough while open to be a deterrent) around the forgotten boundary.

Owing to some poor directions and an incorrect postal code courtesy of her good friend Scott, Cosima found herself wandering alone inside of the brick wall, as she attempted to get any kind of phone signal to yell at him/get some decent directions to this "awesome" new lab he had been offered.

Unfortunately, a signal was very hard to come by. She hoped it existed, because if it didn't, her best bet would be to drive almost an hour back the way she came to the most recent area of civilisation to fix a navigational mistake that could've been made even five minutes ago. She wouldn't accept defeat that easily.

The town looked like something that could be found post-apocalypse, except wildlife was teeming in a way that it shouldn't. Ordinary grass was almost knee high in some places and trees had branched off into collapsing buildings and hung over what once were usable roads. Animal-wise, it could've been its own Galapagos Island: an untouched ecosystem thriving and unattached to the world beyond the wall. She marvelled over this.

In her wandering of a field, she slipped, hitting head on an obscured, scruffy rock. Upon closer inspection, it held the hand-carved words:  
Here lie 240/421 of us. May your souls find peace.

Nothing in this world could have made the situation of being completely alone in an abandoned town without phone signal any less comfortable for Cosima, even the notion that she was stood on a mass grave. She kept walking.

One bar fluctuated between existing and not existing when she found and stood on top of a ditched truck. She tried to call Scott first, then pretty much anybody, but she couldn't hold the connection long enough to make any form of contact. It took another 20 minutes of stubbornness before she got too cold and bored of wandering before she headed back through the partially blocked roads of what was probably once a pretty nice area.

The gate to leave town, where her car was left just beyond the boundary, had become the fascination of the local wildlife in the short while she'd been gone. This didn't phase her until she looked at the animals somewhat closer up and recognised no less than four of them to be venomous, and another two with some rather impressive talons to rip her face from her skull.

Would a stick work? Making a ton of noise? Jumping into the trunk, which was slightly less of an attraction to them, and climbing through to turn on the engine? This was irritating and she was already late.

She would, however, be later still, which was one thing she didn't foresee occurring before the crowbar hit her clear on the back of the head, immediately knocking her unconscious and cancelling every plan she had ever made.

She woke up aching and alone, on the floor of an overly clean and perfect room. Well, clean except for the pile of vomit that she supposed she had produced while unconscious, given the fact that it was all over her face.

She barely recognised herself in the mirror on the dressing table when she managed to stand up - simply, she was feral. Her skin looked paler than usual and was covered in the dirt from her trek and bits of half digested breakfast. There were a few whole, almost perfect bald strips, scabbed over with blood, on her head, where it appeared individual dreads had been yanked out. The remaining majority were all over the place and practically untameable. 

Everything in the room appeared to sparkle, from the bed to the rows of bookshelves lining an entire wall. It was modern and smelt faintly of disinfectant (and stale vomit, which she tried to ignore), but had no windows. There was a bathroom attached, with the largest bathtub Cosima had ever been faced with. A wash was both necessary and welcome at this point in time, she figured. Then, she would decide what this was. She was strangely unfazed, immediately suspecting DYAD and knowing that, if this was them, they'd put her back in a lab where she could be useful once they'd identified her. No harm done. The clones were getting used to what were being called "precautions". Their face was very recognisable and was almost always checked when seen.

Cosima knew after maybe five hours in the room that she was already losing her mind at being locked up. Both the bookshelves and wardrobe rearranged their contents regularly; this was invisible, of course, even to her delusional eye, but it happened. The books, at first, were organised by author. After she had finished flicking through the first book by an ALDREN, the second was on the other side of the room with LUBACH.

Most peculiar of the room, however, was the door: it was made of some sort of matte glass, and no matter how she tried to smash it, it remained flawless. The handle was on the other side, so anybody could come in, but Cosima was trapped. A similar flap in the wall was, she soon discovered, for the delivery of three meals a day by a hooded person, who, due to the oversized clothing, was barely recognisable as a fellow human being, let alone identifiable on a personal level. They arrived at 8am, 1pm, and 6pm exactly. They never spoke. Not once. Not even when Cosima grabbed at, scratched, and bit their hand as it passed in lunch. 

The house was usually silent and showed no sign of any occupancy bar the person who brought food and a golden labrador, which occasionally would push its head sideways through the food flap for a pet. This was the best contact she was having with any living creature. Gradually, she felt less and less secure in her first idea that this was a Leda associate. First of all, why would they have a dog?

Days turned into weeks, and an escape from the windowless luxury cell was getting less and less realistic. She had filled the bathroom with steam by running all of the hot taps simultaneously countless times to make plans on the fogged mirror, but nothing she could think of ever worked in her favour. She could only count on three things right now: the dog wanted petting, the hooded creature/person/thing brought food, and this room was escape proof. 

She was four days into a hunger strike, filled plates piled in clear view of the door, when, finally, she heard another human being speak.

"You must eat, Cosima." The hooded person was a woman, then, clearly, and foreign. She had mastered the art of dipping her head at just the right angle, so no features could be seen in the shadows. She was just a faceless, hooded woman.

All of the things she had considered saying, logical things to find out what this situation was, all flew out of the non-existent window. All she could mutter, desperately hungry, was "how do you know my name?"

"Your drivers license was in your car."

"You guys went in my car. That's nice."

"It was necessary to clear it off of the road. It looked suspicious, left just outside of the gate as it was."

"Suspicious," she echoed the woman out of complete disbelief, "what, like, suspicious like you knocked the shit out of the owner and locked them up for 16 days, suspicious? Yeah. That would look a bit suspicious. Good job there."

The woman dumped the evening food through the hatch and left without another word. Cosima waited for the dog. It always arrived just after the woman had left.

She avoided the door around the times where food was delivered for the next couple of days by hiding in the bathroom. She needed to gather herself and be logical. Day 16 was a mishap. She was overwhelmed by actual human contact. This would not happen again. 

She attempted, soon after, to tie some clothes from the seemingly infinite wardrobe supply across the door in a way that would block the hatch. Really, all she was after was a moment for the door to open and a chance to escape. When the hooded figure arrived and saw the blockage, however, the door did not open. 

"You're DYAD, right? Why are you keeping me here?" She said. This was probably an amateur move, but it was worth a try while the woman tried to find a way to feed her.

Something unlikely then happened. She looked up slightly, enough for Cosima to make out a face in the shadows. This was the first time in eighteen days she had seen a face that wasn't her own. As much as she had persuaded herself that whoever this was, she was evil, this wasn't correlating. She would've seemed nice without the glass screen. "I am not keeping you here. I am keeping you alive," she whispered, as if something in this empty house was listening and the idea of not letting a prisoner die was unforgivable. "I would reconsider this," she motioned to the clothes and spoke at normal volume again, "if I were you."

She left the food outside of the room, and when the dog arrived, it ate it. This was only her 21st skipped meal, after all. It can't have done any more damage than the previous 20. She vowed to have breakfast tomorrow, though. Her ribs were a little too visible for her liking, and it was getting uncomfortable in the mirror. This method was also proving very ineffective at getting out of here.

On day 19, she began eating again. Seeing this, instead of just dropping off food and taking old trays when Cosima offered them up, the woman began waiting outside of the door as she ate, usually with the dog on her lap. The pair of them might've looked absurd: for a total of maybe half an hour in a day, they were on opposite sides of a pane of glass, one absentmindedly stroking a dog, the other eating. Sometimes they talked, but more often than not they just watched each other. The woman was still unnamed to Cosima, despite that being the one thing she asked almost every mealtime. She also still wore the cloak with the hood, but didn't dip her head to shadow her face, and usually rolled the loose sleeves up too. She wouldn't suggest a reason for wearing it when it wasn't hiding anything anymore. Still, Cosima saw her becoming more and more human through that glass door every time they sat across it, and these tiny, human connections became everything. 

"Is there anyone else here?" Cosima asked one morning.

"Just me, the dog, and the furniture," she answered, smirking at Cosima's confused expression, "we take care of the owner. He doesn't leave his room a lot though. I see him a few times a week. He bought the town when everyone left."

"Any idea why someone would do that?"

"I suppose he just likes his space. Everyone does, to some degree."

Out of the blue, something changed on day 24.

As the woman pushed the 1pm tray through the flap, their fingertips touched. A ghost of a smile appeared on her. It was then Cosima wondered: if this house truly was just her and the mysterious owner (and, of course, the dog and "the furniture" - also known as evidence that being alone isn't good for a person in terms of mental stimulation), how lonely she could be. They lingered like this while they spoke, holding the tray of food as an excuse to continue this precious human contact.

"I've spoken to the owner. We're having dinner together tonight, and he's asked for you to come. Try to look presentable."

"I don't particularly want to eat with someone who locked me up for three and a half weeks, thanks."

"This is what freedom looks like at first, Cosima. It's gradual."

"Why am I even being kept here?"

The woman reached in and took Cosima's wrist. The grip was firm, not painful, but trusting, and very serious. "That isn't your place to know. Nobody knows before they know everything, and he wouldn't let someone know everything until he trusted them not to leave."

"Nobody knows?" Cosima echoed, "nobody, as in, you're not the only person here?"

She let go of Cosima's arm and the tray, and pulled the flap closed. "I wish that were true." They must've hit a touchy subject, because for the first time in what felt like an eternity, Cosima ate with just the dog poking through the flap for company.

She brooded over what the woman had meant while she consumed the rather bland chunk of bread that she had been given. It had certainly sounded like she was implying there were others in the house, others who were unseen, unheard. Then again, this can't have meant a lot in this house, as Cosima hadn't seen or heard the owner yet either. The loudest inhabitant was most definitely the dog.

She took her second bath of the day (there really wasn't a lot to do in that room, so she did spend a lot of time washing) and did as the woman had told her: found something nice to wear. At this point, she was trying not to think about how the most suitable contents of the wardrobe for whatever occasion - sleeping, lazing around the bedroom, or now formal meals - were always right at the front. It made things easier, anyway.

When the woman came to collect Cosima, she was in the bathroom, attempting to pin down and hide the fluffy new hairs that had grown back after the old dreads had gone missing in her transport to this room. She was trying to look nice, after all. She wore a long, red dress to cover some leggings underneath and a blazer-type jacket. She ignored the heels that were resting in the front of the wardrobe and reached further into the back, where some brogues were found. She was about to leave her room. If she could get out of the house and run for her freedom, she didn't want to freeze to death or break her ankles in the process. It wasn't really her style anyway.

The glass door opened silently. The first Cosima knew about it was the woman standing behind her in the mirror. She had taken the hood down, revealing a mass of blonde curls that were tied back into a loose bun.

They smiled to each other in the reflection. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah, sure, dinner. I'm good. Let's go."

As they walked, she attempted to memorise all that she could about the house, but it was excessively dark and the route seemed designed to confuse her. 

They stopped outside of some huge, antique looking double doors. The glow of a fire was visible below them. It was the most homely, reassuring feature Cosima could've possibly seen at this moment. It calmed her.

The woman whispered again, "Whatever you see or think you see, don't freak out about it."

"Why shouldn't I? I'm a prisoner." Cosima didn't try to hide her smouldering discomfort at this idea, now worsened by being told to pretend there is nothing wrong with it.

"Because it's important. If you can do tonight, you'll be trusted. Believe me, Cosima, please. If he doesn't explain everything you want to know, I will. Then the food flap will be gone and you'll have a handle on both sides of your bedroom door, I promise."

Everything about this - the sudden meeting for "dinner" after three and a half weeks, the allusiveness of the woman, the notion that everything will be different after one magical evening - seemed very, very wrong to Cosima.

"I can't trust someone just because they feed me." 

There was a few seconds of contemplative silence, then the woman muttered, "Delphine."

"What?" This was unexpected. Finally, an answer to a question that seemed so, so simple, but had still been withheld for the full week Cosima had been asking, was out. It was a strange place for both of them.

"You just have to trust me. I know this place inside out." Without another moment left to respond, the double doors opened themselves into paradise.


	2. Out

Delphine stepped in ahead of Cosima, who was pretty much frozen outside of the room. There were two separate fireplaces, one either side of the door that she was yet to walk through. Both of them held flames that were almost her height. In the centre of the room there was a circular table, hanging above which was a chandelier. It was jewelled, and golden light refracted off of it and onto the floor like an unmoving disco ball. At the table were three chairs, one of which was occupied by a man who looked like he was plucked straight out of 18th century Europe - painted white face, white wig, aristocratic clothing that covered almost every inch of his skin. He was already eating the food that was being deposited on the plate in front of him by flying dishes. 

They whizzed around above him, all heaped with food, and tipped to just the right angles to allow the also flying serving spoons to fill any gaps on his plate that he made. Occasionally a plate would stop circling the table and fly through a door, which opened itself in time for more plates to enter. 

He didn't notice Delphine entering, but what Cosima supposed was "the furniture" did. A coat stand slid across the room towards her, collecting her hooded cloak, which also, of course, took itself off of her shoulders and flew to its resting place. She was dressed closer to the present day than he was: a simple, silky yellow dress that seemed to have wrapped itself around her body it clung to her so perfectly. She turned around, gestured for Cosima to enter the room, and walked to take her seat at the table with the man. More plates and serving spoons flew out of what Cosima guessed was the kitchen and immediately started tending to her.

Cosima stopped staring at Delphine when the coat stand poked her arm and waited expectantly in front of her, while her blazer tugged upwards and backwards to leave her body. She let her arms go limp and it slipped off and flew onto a vacant hook. She didn't move straight away, so the stand poked her again. Then it stood on her foot. It was surprisingly heavy, and got her moving into the spare seat. Immediately her plate was filled.

Nobody spoke while they ate at first. Cosima tried not to think about "the furniture" too much, about how it seemed to know exactly what she wanted to eat at any moment and got it onto her plate within a minute or two, or about the eight violins that had entered soon after her and were playing any song she thought of. It entirely defied science and logic, the whole house did in fact, but she found she didn't mind so much when she had gotten the violins to play a mashup of the Macarena and the SpongeBob theme song.

Eventually, the man interrupted her experimentation. "So, Cosima. I hope my house has been treating you well these past weeks." He had the same accent as Delphine. 

"I think I'd be dead if it hadn't been," she replied, looking him dead in the eyes. Delphine coughed in the few seconds of silence that followed while the man considered this.

"That could be arranged. It would save me a lot of potential suffering, I assure you."

More silence, but this time, everybody kept eating as if nothing that even implied her approaching demise had been said. He had made his position quite clear for now, but Cosima was still interested in Delphine's side of the story. She told herself she would get it later.

Soon, the plates stopped filling, the violins stopped playing, and the furniture stopped buzzing around them. The man stood up and smiled, "eleven O'clock," he announced. Eerily, immediately after this a clock in another room chimed eleven times. "Bedtime," he continued, walking over to Delphine and putting a hand on her shoulder. She smiled up at him and he returned it. "Goodnight, mon chiot," he whispered.

"Goodnight."

Cosima tried again as he began to leave. "Why are you keeping me here?" He stopped in his tracks and turned to face her.

"I keep all of my trespassers. They're like souvenirs to me, you have to understand that. It's for everybody's good. Eventually you'll understand."

Every tiny thing he had said seemed calculated, scripted, to distress her. She didn't give him the satisfaction despite the terror bubbling up inside of her. That was a full on horror movie murdering villain phrase, twinned with a smile like it too, no doubt about that. "Souvenirs". She needed to get out as soon as possible.

"What was that supposed to mean, Delphine?" She asked this as pleasantly as she could manage the moment she believed the man to be out of earshot, but this wasn't a time for patience, so he probably wasn't. He would've wanted to hear her say that. If he didn't hear it, Delphine would probably be telling him about it as soon as she had locked Cosima back in her room.

It had all seemingly gone entirely over Delphine's head. She looked unmoved, but avoided eye contact. "Come on, let's go back upstairs." 

Cosima said nothing in return and stayed in her seat at the table while Delphine went over to the coat stand to put her cloak back on. When she looked over and Cosima was still unmoving, she threw her blazer in her general direction too.

"Not here. Come upstairs. There are places we can talk freely."

They were silent all the way back upstairs to Cosima's room, but the route this time was simple and well lit. She took in as many of the surroundings and potential escape routes as she could.

There was something awkward in the atmosphere between them as Delphine gathered the used plates from Cosima's lunch off the floor, and Cosima waited on the bed for her to leave, biting her nails. This was a habit she had developed in this room and intended to leave behind with it. 

Delphine approached the bed and pulled Cosima's hand away from her mouth. She examined the now bleeding fingertips slowly, rolling them one by one between her own forefinger and thumb. "A couple of these are getting infected. I'll bring something for them tomorrow with breakfast."

Cosima said nothing in reply, leaving Delphine to resume the eye contact that they had avoided since leaving dinner. "You want to ask me something?" she observed.

Cosima didn't waste a moment. "He said 'souvenirs'. What does that even mean?"

"He was joking. Goodnight now."

"And you? 'Places we can talk freely'?"

"I didn't mean your room. Tomorrow maybe."

She expected that as soon as Delphine had left her bedroom, the door handle would become single-sided again, and she'd be trapped until her next opportunity to escape. This didn't happen. 

Cosima waited a few minutes, alone in the room, before taking advantage of the new installment to the door. It seemed the furniture trusted her, and she supposed she trusted it back, given the fact that she couldn't resist giving everything a grateful tap on her way out. Well, everything except the bookshelf, which had only made things more difficult to find with its constant rearranging.

She followed the route she had mapped out in her head to the front door, which instantly opened itself when she stood next to it and willed to leave. This house was not a person or people in itself, evidently. It just acted like it had a consciousness and trusted like a child.

Outside was cold to say the least. What she was wearing was not enough to stop her skin, exposed or covered, start to sting from the extreme winds, and she was shivering in seconds. She had purpose, though, for the first time in almost a month. This purpose was find her car, or any vehicle for that matter, and get the hell out of here.

The house seemed to be in a part of town that she hadn't been in before, but to her right she could make out the top of the wall in the moonlight. This wall was a perimeter for the town, so surely following it around would eventually lead to the gate. Most of the roads inside were blocked with fallen trees, so, unless her car had learned to fly - something that originally was a joke in her head but now she was quite concerned about - it couldn't be far from the gate.

It felt like she was walking for hours before she saw a break in the wall in the distance, but judging on the fact that she was still alive, it was probably more like ten minutes. Delphine had lied, and Cosima was right in her theory. They barely moved the car at all - just into the gate by a few metres and to the side a little as to not block the entrance. How sensible of them, and convenient for her.

As soon as she saw it, she subconsciously attempted to reach into her nonexistent bag for the keys. No bag, no keys, and inappropriately dressed for the weather. This was not very well thought through.

She was going to die out there unless she headed back to the house, and she knew it. Unfortunately, her stubbornness often lead to stupidity, and this was an occasion that would demonstrate this. She would be walking out if she couldn't use the car.

It was definitely worth a closer look. The doors were unlocked, and the keys were on the seat. This should have been a huge warning sign, but she was too thrilled to care. One hour, and she'd be in civilisation. In under three she could be home.

Or, five minutes and she'd be back inside. This was not considered.

She put the car in reverse, turned it around, and began to leave. She rolled to a thoughtful stop just outside of the gate, as the very air she breathed seemed to fill with the sound of a man screaming. A thick, humid sensation that left her tasting some nonexistent blood in her mouth washed over her, but afterwards it was replaced with a calmness and tranquility that she had never felt to quite that intensity before.

Her recapture was sudden yet drawn out. A piece of cloth came from behind her seat and clamped around her neck, and hard. Almost as a reflex, her foot slammed down on the accelerator, sending the car with both people in it flying forwards but not changing the struggle inside. 

Cosima clawed at the cloth and then at the hands holding the cloth, needing air over anything else in the moment, but it was to no avail. The car continued to lurch forwards at 40, 50, 60.

The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was the glint of a familiar eye in the rear view mirror, otherwise camouflaged by the same old hooded cloak. She was fully unconscious by the time the car had slammed into water.


	3. Tale

She didn't wake up again in her own room. Instead she found herself in what she supposed was a tiny cell. The walls and ceiling were all coated in a solid plastic material, and the door was disguised into this. The colour of the plastic changed with her will, much like the music at dinner, but she couldn't get the door to open itself as she could the front door. The floor was grilled, as if she was standing on a giant drain. There were no windows or temperature settings. The room was lit with a single bulb that burned down on her and that she couldn't switch off. The furniture was limited to a toilet, a shower head, and a bare mattress that all were lining the walls, leaving her barely enough room to pace.

She had woken up maybe four days ago (there wasn't a clock or any sunlight to define days, so she used her hunger pangs to formulate a routine instead), every muscle in her body aching intolerably. Her clothes were dry but felt rough on her skin, as if she'd put them on wet and had them dry on her. It was what she remembered wearing to dinner, but torn and filthy. Her whole body, as far as she could see, was patched over with countless bruises, and she assumed from the pain upon poking, her head and neck were too. She was excessively thirsty and nothing helped get rid of the sensation. Something had changed - no food or water was delivered now. Cosima drunk water from the shower to not die. Above all, she was beginning to miss the dog and even the highly frustrating bookshelf from her old room. They kept her sane. She didn't know how long she'd be able to keep it together in this situation.

Something inside her doubted that Delphine would leave her to lose her mind or die in there, despite the fact that she knew that she had trapped her. She had probably suspected an escape attempt was imminent, so moved the car into a convenient spot, left the keys ready, and hid herself in the back. It was only the building that had trusted Cosima. The people never did, and they probably wouldn't. Cosima didn't either. The extent they went to in order to keep her here was suspiciously excessive. 

Cosima spent most of her time as it crept by lying on the mattress. She found her mind to be a more enjoyable place to be in than ever before, which surprised her. She got so hungry that she didn't feel hungry anymore, and so bored that she didn't feel boredom anymore. All she needed to do was close her eyes and she was anywhere except for where she actually was. It became the only way she could soothe herself in moments when something else took over her body, and it screamed to be let out and punched and slammed itself against the door until it bled. It and she became more alike by the second. She yearned for her freedom too, just internalised it more.

She lost track of her false sense of time when she stopped feeling hunger. After that she felt as if she was simply an existence rather than a person. She didn't live like a person anymore because she couldn't. She just carried on living against her will, wondering if anybody missed her.

She woke up one day from a sleep, a real sleep, a deep sleep that left her feeling more alive, to Delphine sitting on the floor by the mattress, watching her. 

"How long has it been," she croaked, her voice scratching from underuse. The words didn't sound like a question. They might not have even been real words. All she knew was the effort to even make the sounds exhausted her, and she hadn't even sat up yet.

"Since you tried to leave or since you woke up?"

Cosima raised herself against the wall a little and shrugged. This didn't matter. What she really wanted was the exact amount of days since she stumbled upon this abandoned town and its population of two. It was a tiny way to keep a hold of herself and the outside world.

"You first got out of bed seventeen days ago. You were in here two days before that, probably slipping in and out of consciousness. I couldn't spare any time to make sure you were okay."

"Okay from what?" This was a little more coherent.

"The car crashed into a river just under half a mile away and I had to pull us out and carry you all the way back here."

Cosima sniggered. "Explains the bruises."

"I tried to be careful with you, but I had to get back here quickly... so, I'm sorry."

"Why'd you have to get back here quickly?"

"That doesn't matter. I brought some soup for you. I'll leave you to eat it. Take it slowly."

She knew that advice was worth taking after weeks of starvation and she did take it. One sip every minute. She counted out the seconds and was so disappointed when she reached the end of the cup that she kept counting.

When Delphine returned a while later, Cosima had stopped counting but still clung onto the cup. It retained its warmth and almost, almost, reminded her of holding another person instead. 

"Do you feel any better?" 

"I'm just tired."

"Can you walk back to your room?"

"Already?" She didn't mean this to be as tinged with shock as it was.

Delphine glanced up at the ceiling, and a patch of it flashed red for a moment. "This isn't a good room for a person."

They silently got up and walked out of the room and down a long, poorly lit, filthy corridor. Cosima found herself having to lean on Delphine after maybe 20 feet. They moved slowly. She was exhausted, and everything hurt from suddenly going from lifeless to walking. Cosima turned back as they reached the stairs to what she would only know now as her cell. It glistened in contrast to its dark surroundings. It looked alien.

It took time for them to reach a part of the house Cosima recognised. Unsurprising, considering all she really knew was her bedroom relative to the dining room and the front door; even those routes were foggy in her mind now, though. She was struck with an odd sense of happiness when she saw the familiar glass door of her own room. She wanted her bed and her books and a long bath. She wanted to dress herself up in every outfit in the wardrobe like a kid. She wanted to try and tame her hair, which, somehow, was getting more and more rabid with each passing moment.

Delphine left Cosima within walking distance of her own bed while she went to run her a bath. Cosima was hungry again, and exhausted too, but needed conversation more than food or sleep after her period of isolation.

"You never trusted me, did you? When we got back from dinner and you told me you would explain soon, you knew I would try to go."

The response was shouted over running water. "Yes. I was right not to trust you. You did try to leave."

"Your house trusted me. The doors opened."

"That always happens after they've had their first meal out of the bedroom. I wish it didn't."

Delphine had made a mindless mistake there. Cosima waited until she was back at her side to respond. "They?"

She lowered herself to Cosima's eye level. "I think you've realised already, Cosima, that you weren't the first person here. You need to be careful now. I'll show you everything in a while."

"Just out of interest, how long is a while?"

"It'll be longer if you leave this room. All being well, a few days. You need to get some strength back."

This seemed reasonable. She nodded, and with a parting squeeze of her hand, Delphine was gone. There was no door handle on Cosima's side. She was back a while later with dinner, cloakless. She passed it through the flap in the door and they sat as Cosima ate and Delphine stroked the dog. Cosima passed the tray back and Delphine was gone. She came back with breakfast the next day at 8am. All was normal again.

As promised, four days later, when Cosima was almost back to her old self, Delphine told her at breakfast that they would be going out for a tour and explanation in an hour. She came into the room and helped her find something comfortable to wear after she had eaten, and then left her to wash and dress. She was back right on time.

They at first went downstairs and to the front door. It was a centre point navigating the house, which was a lot larger than a house in reality. More like a mansion. Cosima felt sure that she'd be dead or go insane and kill everybody to escape before she had explored them all. Delphine pointed out various rooms with a function to her.

She then took Cosima back upstairs and to the right. Her bedroom was on the left, and apparently, Delphine's was too, she just hadn't noticed. Now though, they were apparently heading for the owner's quarters.

Cosima couldn't help feel a little afraid of him. "Can we go somewhere else first, please?"

"No. This has to be first so you can see why we stay here. Just trust me."

The door had no handle, but clicked open when Delphine placed her hand on it. They entered to a dimly lit, musky room, in which Cosima could make out a bed. Revealed upon their getting closer, lying in bed, was the owner. He was obviously unwell. Piled high with blankets, groaning in his sleep, his breath rasping and creaking - he seemed moments from his death. A few pieces of furniture appeared to be nursing him back to health. It was bizarre, and yet tragic.

"What's wrong with him?" She felt a million pairs of eyes on her after she said this. It might've been insensitive, or she might just be for the first time horribly aware that everything around her was alive.

"He's sick. It happens when someone trespasses and then tries to leave."

"Sorry, what?"

"The wall outside forms a barrier. He's my uncle. He left France when I was a baby and bought the whole town cheap. I was visiting him with my parents when I was very young, I don't remember exactly how old. But there was an accident, a curse was placed on him, and now anybody who comes inside of the wall cannot leave without physically tearing him apart."

She pulled the blanket covering him down to his stomach. His chest was covered in short, deep looking cuts, dotted all over. In a few areas they were so dense in population that they seemed to form one larger tear in the skin. They were all hastily, messily, stitched back together. They could've been stab wounds, made with knives the size of a finger, but Cosima doubted that that was a feasible cause. She nearly felt ready to believe Delphine on this one. Nearly.

"You honestly believe any of that? Curses?"

"You're looking at the proof. Besides, I saw everything. It's the only part of my childhood before it was just me and him that I remember. I have nothing on my parents, but everything on this."

There was a moment of stillness as the furniture stopped tending to him. Delphine cocked a finger and they were gone in a moment. Maybe just to give herself something to do, she took his temperature and began cleaning his wounds while cutting some of the messier stitches out. Cosima broke the silence. "What happened?"

"I got... upset. I'm not sure what about anymore, but I ran off into the woods. I saw a vision when I was out there, of an old woman, who told me to follow her. Bearing in mind I hadn't even started school yet, I thought everything was magical. So I followed her. She took me to a clearing with a rock in the middle and said her family were trapped, buried there. She said they didn't want any trouble. He had poisoned their water and hurt them and stolen their land. He still denies the water thing to this day, but that didn't matter. The woman was getting angry now. She told me to steal back an amulet from a display cabinet in the hall, her amulet, and put it under the rock. I was scared of her, and of him, and I wanted to go home. I did as she said and there was an explosion of colour and light, but it was so cold. I woke up the next morning lying in the snow, which appeared overnight, still dressed in my pyjamas. I should've died. He came along a few hours later and carried me back to this house and explained that the woman had lied to me and all we had was each other now. If I ever saw her again in the woods I had to run back to the house straight away. I was just confused. I was confused for years. I wanted my parents, but he wouldn't let me call them. She paused for a moment, and then opened a drawer and started rummaging through it for something. "The old townspeople think he killed them after trespassing, so now, when anybody else trespasses, he gets hurt. Misguided revenge. He raised me, Cosima. He's my only family now. I can't let that happen to him."

"Shit. I don't think you could've made that up."

Delphine said nothing as she found what she was looking for - sutures - and began to replace the stitches she had removed, Cosima supposed less hurriedly than the previous time. The man was covered in scars of a similar nature. How many times had this happened? 

They didn't say anything else while she worked. This was an impossible situation for Delphine, too, which Cosima hadn't expected to quite this degree. Sure, she missed her own people desperately, but was comforted by the idea that her sisters had each other to lean on and everybody else would shuffle by once they lost hope of finding her. This was a kidnap situation beyond her imagination, because she wasn't sure she even wanted to leave. Not immediately, anyway. If one of her new housemates were to suddenly die, the tables would entirely turn.

"I need to show you one more place."

Delphine took Cosima by the wrist and back downstairs to the door that she claimed led to the cellar. This time, the hallways were fully lit up by daylight through the windows. It was a beautiful place. Shame she was a prisoner. The cellar, before the door had even opened, seemed less pleasant.

"Delphine, what's that smell?"

"Please, don't panic." She opened the door and dragged her down the stairs, eyes shut at first.

The scene in the cellar was one that might've even shocked a butcher had these been animals. Fifteen naked bodies hung by the necks in nooses. Their mouths hung open, stiffened, as if even in death they were still gasping desperately for breath. All of them had their teeth pulled out. Eight of them had their eyes wide open. They had bled out through slits in their wrists and feet, presumably after death. The floor was covered in the stuff, which had crusted over and was sticky to walk on. The teeth were scattered in the mess. They were in various states of decay as insects worked between them.

A sixteenth noose hung with the others, waiting for its occupant.

"That's... yours." Delphine's head dropped and remained there, staring dazed at the foot of one of the bodies.

"Thanks. I got that." Cosima found herself circling the room, looking more closely at the hanging bodies, taking in each of their half-rotted faces, imagining them in life. One struck her as familiar, but she couldn't identify it.

"These are his... souvenirs, right? This is what he was talking about at dinner."

"Yes. I told you that people who enter can't leave again. That's true, even in death. If they've completely decomposed to just bones, I bury them."

"So how many have there been?"

She paused, and then, without looking up, "I don't remember. Probably almost a hundred by now."

"No inquiry into any of the disappearances?"

Her hands contorted into themselves. "Nothing," she whispered.

Cosima looked upwards and let out a long awaited sigh. This was not something she had expected, but she wasn't running. Something made her want to stay, despite what she had just seen. On the ceiling was something she hadn't noticed before: a room-wide mirror. The scene looked even more intense from that angle.

She caught her own face in the reflection, standing out against the harsh colours, and then went back to the body that she thought she had recognised. She thought she recognised it because she did. It was her face. Again. Just another she didn't get to know before it died.

She didn't need time to digest that fact anymore. Clones to her were becoming as common as butterflies in summer. "Why mutilate them? Cut them up? Pull their teeth?"

"I don't do that. He does."

Cosima took a step away from the bodies and shook her head in disgust. This was clearly some kind of weird fetish that kept him occupied, if Delphine was correct in saying that he can't leave.

"You know, if I was doing what I'm supposed to, that noose would be filled. Try to leave again and I promise you it will be."

"Did they get a second chance too?"

"No. I suppose you're the lucky one."

"Because you want to know why there's two of me in here? Two of me, who speak differently and act differently so obviously aren't related?"

Delphine said nothing. 

"As if I'd ever get desperate enough to tell you. You killed these people."

"No. I tried to look after them. They killed themselves by ignoring my advice."

"I ignored your advice!"

"Do not test me. And do not yell. If you wake him he will have the furniture tear you to pieces. Hanging is the humane way out. You should be dead."

"I'm alive because you're curious about my face? You've starved me and shown me rotting bodies and you expect me to be good to you because you told me your sad story? It sounds fake anyway. Don't you worry though, I'll hang around for your precious uncle. I don't want to see anybody except the dog."

With that she was gone, like a preteen, up to her bedroom. The house sensed the change, she was glad to see, and the door handle was on her side now. Delphine couldn't get in, while Cosima could get out. She remained inside. Delphine arrived three times a day, fully hooded and silent as before, with generously large portions of far higher quality food than was usually given to her. It wasn't fair. A part of her was glad to be alive, but she almost wished she was hanging with the others. It held less of a decision.


	4. Recovery

How long could a person go without speaking to anybody? Both Cosima and Delphine were testing that, communicating with just eye contact. A burning hatred was in Cosima's. Delphine's was simply upset. They met in hallways now, not at a glass door, because both ate in the dining room. Cosima was sick of relying on Delphine for anything, cloaked or not. They collided for the first few days, but once they had learned each other's schedules, they could reasonably go days without having to face each other.

Cosima wanted this entire thing to be a lie. While Delphine spent hours tending to her uncle in his room, Cosima rummaged through hers. She just wanted proof. If she found evidence that Delphine's whole story was fake and she just enjoyed killing people, Cosima knew she would leave immediately. No matter what, if that evidence could not be found, she decided she would have to stay. Because if it was all true, and she left, the man would be dead and Delphine, well, who knew what she would be capable of, a serial killer now free to leave? She presumed she'd be first on the hit list.

For now, everything appeared safe enough. Cosima generally avoided rooms she hadn't been shown by Delphine, to save herself from accidentally walking into a second slaughterhouse. It was a big place. Her curiosity was overwhelming, though, so occasionally she would crack open an unfamiliar door and peak inside of it. She never struck gold. It was always a storage room, or the door led to another door that was locked.

She found herself drawn to the cellar every time she walked past it, and usually went down there to sit a couple of times a day. Gradually it, and the smell of it, became less horrific. Gradually she feared the sixteenth noose, her noose, less and less. She attempted to identify the other clone, or remember her enough to find a name for her one day, but there was nothing notable about her. No hair dye, no piercings, no distinguishable markings on the half decayed skin. It was despairing. These were bodies without identities, left to rot. It couldn't have been good to remain down there too long for a living person, but Cosima didn't really care anymore. All she felt like doing was pondering this whole situation.

It wasn't as if she had a lot else to do. Delphine had practically claimed the dog. It followed her everywhere and rarely sat by Cosima's door anymore. It was probably picking up on her dropping mood, and sticking around Delphine's happiness. When they saw each other, her step was definitely getting bouncier. Cosima supposed her uncle was recovering. She didn't want him to. She couldn't shake the feeling that he would string her up himself when he found her still alive.

She didn't know how much of a life she had left to live, so yes, she made the most of it and the living house. She took four or five meals a day and each one was twice that she would've had back in the real world. Calorie content was still a thing here, unfortunately, and as she gorged on her third brownie of the day, she mused over Delphine's figure. How she had managed to remain slim when her whole life was an all-you-can-eat buffet that didn't even require standing up was far beyond Cosima's understanding.

Over the next week, she remained inside the house, not initially wanting to appear to be trying to leave again. This grew thin and she started taking herself outside, gradually further from the house, but never approaching the wall to avoid a crowbar to the back of the head or a strangling again. Delphine could usually be spotted within a reasonable distance in case it became necessary, or, if she was with her uncle, would glance out of the window periodically. 

One day, Delphine remained inside, and didn't appear to be babysitting Cosima at all. She supposed her uncle had worsened. She didn't try to escape, knowing she wouldn't make it anywhere. She just kept exploring. It was a ghost town. Most houses were boarded or bricked up but a few weren't, and she found herself going into these. What for, she didn't know. They were dusty and quite empty but fascinating. The majority of people had taken their furniture with them when they left all those years ago, but a couple of houses, presumably once owned by people who died and were forgotten, were still full of stuff which Cosima dug through. In one there was even a rotting diary, filled with two years worth of entries and left at a bedside with a fountain pen still resting on top of it. She pocketed it for later. Maybe it could prove Delphine had lied.

A little while away she found what was probably once a town square. The buildings were falling apart, like they were almost everywhere else, and the paving stones on the floor were so cracked she had to watch her step to avoid tripping on them. Still, somehow, in the centre of this there was a part untouched by the passage of time. 

A circle of rose bushes surrounded a mosaic floor which depicted a few hundred faceless people running towards the centre, away from the roses and towards a birdbath. Cosima walked in, stepping on as many of the people as she could manage, feeling that they were probably the villagers and therefore the reason she was stuck in limbo. The roses were peculiar things - deep red on the edges and white in the centre, with a pink gradient. Inside the birdbath was another rose, cut from the main plants. It must've been old, it was falling apart, but the petals remained intact and as fresh as those that could still live on the plant. Cosima reached in to take a petal to inspect. The birdbath was bone dry but burned her fingertips on contact as if it was full of acid. This sensation stopped when she jerked her arm away and, slightly spooked, she returned to the house.

Her longer walk had left her hungrier than usual, so she went straight into the dining room and was faced with Delphine, who was eating a kind of broth while silently flicking through a book. She glanced up at Cosima as she entered and twitched a smile, which was awkwardly returned. There was nothing to smile about in reality except the calmness of the house that inevitably occurred in the silence.

Cosima really didn't know how to feel about her. She almost entirely believed the story that was keeping them here, but still had a hope in the diary. She understood to some degree why Delphine was killing people, but wanted the special treatment to be over. She knew she should've been hanging. She also genuinely missed the luxury of simple conversations. Being alone as she was, was proving intolerable. Delphine broke the silence first, however.

"Have you been comfortable?"

She almost choked at the simplicity, and responded similarly, "It's fine."

"Anything else we can get you?"

"I was wondering something, actually." There were a few things she wanted in reality, but she thought she'd start with what seemed small. "Can I borrow a phone?"

"There won't be any point. Once you enter here you become a ghost to everybody outside. Nobody remembers you. You don't exist anymore." She spoke without emotion, as if reading from a menu. After a momentary pause, she continued more quietly, "I learned that a few months after the night the curse was set, when I started exploring. My parents, as far as they know, never had a daughter. There's a phone hidden under the back desk in the library if you really want to call somebody, but I wouldn't recommend it."

"Library?" She became immediately more excited, and Delphine mirrored it, finally putting her book down and openly grinning.

"Yes, best room in the house, honesty. It's through the door opposite to the cellar."

"I think that door was locked."

"Not if you ask it politely."

After a few hours, the rift between them had somewhat cleared, although Cosima was very unhappy that Delphine hadn't shown her the library earlier. It was a ridiculous room, three floors high with every wall acting as a bookshelf. Just thinking of a topic brought as many as hundreds of books flying towards her, and she simply picked one she wanted and the others flew back. To return, they could be thrown into the air and would make their own way back to their rightful place. The room was lit with a chandelier similar to that in the dining room though, owing to the vastness of this room, it was a lot larger. Around the library were chairs and hammocks of every description, just waiting to be used. Under the desk furthest from the door was a phone, camouflaged with a piece of loose carpet, but Cosima avoided it. She wasn't ready to test reality in this way.

They didn't have much choice - they had to live together, so it made sense to at least speak. The major problem was the body collection downstairs, but Cosima found across the hours that with the development of the library, a worthy distraction at the best of times, she hardly worried about it. The diary sat forgotten about in her coat pocket.

She skipped dinner to remain alone in the library, and at around 10:30 Delphine brought her in some snacks which were gratefully accepted and consumed. She worked her way through books she enjoyed as a kid and ridiculously boring books the width of a brick and a few random picks she could reach herself from the ground. Eventually she got so tired that one of her hands was tingling, so went to bed, a plan of action for the next morning whizzing through her mind.

Cosima woke in the early hours, her entire right arm throbbing while the same fingertips she touched the birdbath with feeling as if they were being sliced apart with a hot knife. She practically fell out of the bed and stumbled into the bathroom, hitting the light switch on with her forehead. In front of her eyes the hand turned pink, then red, then black, as if the burn had delayed by a few hours. The blackened skin flaked away to reveal the underlining layers, which started to burn off too, but slowly, allowing her to feel the full affect more with each moment. It visibly spread up her arm but stopped just below the elbow. She wasn't stupid. This was no ordinary burn. Still too half asleep to think clearly and knowing nothing but pain, she found herself running to Delphine's room, tripping and falling twice, her entire body shaking.

She hadn't seen a bedroom in this house other than her own at night before. She almost forgot that she didn't have the luxury of windows. Delphine did, so the moon softly illuminated everything. Cosima practically fell on top of the figure in the bed and it shot up immediately. The room appeared colourless from the relatively poor lighting, but even without this, Delphine seemed to know exactly what had happened as soon as her eyes met Cosima's arm. She grabbed the opposite hand and, without a word, calmly walked the both of them downstairs.

She lead her into the dining room, then straight through into the kitchen. The lights came on automatically. It was surprisingly basic for the extravagance it could quickly produce with a mental request, and very, very cold. Delphine sat her on a wooden chair in the corner and began filling a jug with various foodstuffs from the cupboards. 

"What did you touch, and when?"

"A birdbath with some rose bushes around it just before lunch. What are you doing?"

"This will help it." After a minute or two she stirred the mixture and then brought the bowl over to Cosima. The orange sludge that she began to coat the affected arm in resembled vomit, and didn't smell the greatest either. It also made the pain significantly worse, which was hardly possible, but Delphine's glances were stone and Cosima knew better than to try and wipe the stuff off.

Delphine watched the clock on the wall for exactly four minutes, then wiped off the excess mush, leaving just a thin layer that started to dry out. "You can go back to bed now." She walked out of the kitchen, emotionless. Cosima followed. 

"Will it heal?"

"You'll be surprised come morning."

Delphine was right. The burn, if it could even be called that, had healed miraculously well, leaving Cosima wondering if she had imagined most of the horror of it. By sunrise all that was left was redness and blistering. She put another layer of the mixture on it after getting dressed and left it otherwise exposed.

She walked to breakfast via Delphine's room, which was not only unoccupied, but seemed untouched since the drama of a few hours ago. She was instead found hunched over the dining room table in her ordinary seat, but awoke with a start as Cosima entered.

"You look awful." She sat down and scooted her chair around the table to be barely a metre from Delphine.

"I couldn't sleep after your arm. How is it?"

"Yeah. Tons better. I put more of your orange shit on it this morning."

"Good. That'll reduce scarring."

Once Delphine had completely sat up, breakfast plates began to emerge from the kitchen, and they started to eat. Cosima had more on her mind than food, though. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Yes. If I can ask you one first."

"Deal."

"Who was that girl in the basement who looked like you?"

"Clones," she muttered absentmindedly. It wasn't as if Delphine could damage their anonymity while stuck inside the wall. She didn't stop to allow her any time to consider. "If the house was enchanted by somebody who hated your uncle, then why does it serve you?"

"The furniture serves him to keep him alive. If it means he lives to be tortured another day, the townspeople are okay with that. That's what they told me. We'll be his executioners if we walk out, so trust me, they love us."

"You see them?"

"I hear them. They were laughing when you tried to drive off. If you ever hear any whispering at night, it's just them trying to scare you away. Although I don't think they speak to anyone but me. There were a few of them in my room last night so I stayed down here."

That day became one of togetherness. Delphine took Cosima on a tour of outside. She found the diary to be missing from her coat pocket but didn't feel it was exactly right to stir up a fuss about it, so tried to forget the hope it had offered. It seemed Cosima's exploration had been brief to say the least. She was shown endless clues about the past in the next few hours. There was even a still fully functional, heated indoor swimming pool across the estate, which Delphine paired with a recommendation not to swim in a small lake nearer the house.

"What's wrong with the lake?"

"It's very cold."

"Can I test that?"

"If you want to die, then yes, because I'm not jumping in after you to get you out."

They skipped lunch, but came back in the early evening for a feast that more than made up for it. Their conversations barely touched on personal, but remained frequent. Afterwards they both grabbed a book or two from the library and Cosima found herself trailing after Delphine, who was heading for her uncle's room to check on him and then to read on an apparently unmatchably comfortable chair in there.

"He looks better," Cosima noted. She stood behind Delphine as if shielded here from a face that managed to appear angry, even in sleep.

"Do you wish he didn't?"

"I just... don't want to die. He'll kill me when he wakes up."

"Not necessarily."

"I don't think he'll wanna risk me running off again, Delphine, so yes, he'll kill me."

"We're a lot more powerful than he is, Cosima. You can be okay here."

The chair Delphine had spoken of fitted the both of them perfectly and they took this option, reading in full view of the owner's bed and a large window as the sun set. She was right. It was very comfortable.

"Did you ever try to leave this place?"

"Of course. Usually when I was very young, and frustrated, because I was full of childish dreams that couldn't happen. He used to lock me in the little plastic room that you were in. I learned to be calm."

"It's not a calming room."

"You have to be the source of the calm in there. I still hate it though. I am sorry that I left you there for so long."

Neither left for their bedrooms. They sat together into the night, only occasionally speaking, but in constant physical contact. It was almost pleasant. There was almost trust. The yellow candlelight flickered and the white moonlight remained whole as they dozed off, blissfully unaware of the danger they had uncovered.

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if anybody really cares that much but my tumblr is stledaheda. Hit me up I'm lonely.


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